Smart care provider Alcove enters the U.S. market

Source: Elvina Yang

Date: 2018/05/15

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Alcove, a British home care service provider using connected technologies, is entering the U.S. market.

Alcove offers its services via various packages designed for different use cases. Its center is Alcove software maintained by the Alcove team. Some packages work with Alcove’s own hardware and software while some uses third-party devices like the Amazon Dot.

For example, the “Wandering” package includes Amazon’s Ring doorbell, the Echo Show speaker and movement sensors. It aims to help alert families when relatives leave the house unexpectedly, or when someone comes knocking the door.

For disabled people who lie in bed for most time of the day, Alcove provides voice-controlled smart light features, and a video care phone that can send reminders for medication.

Alcove claimed to be the largest in-home data collector in Britain with “north of 35 million data points,” said the company’s founder Hellen Bowey in an interview with Forbes. Nest, in comparison, has sold over 11 million devices, making it to have around 33 million data points.

Alcove stores all personal data on Microsoft Azure Cloud and the Alexa skills on Amazon devices. These personal information is anonymized and is only shared with consenting parties, said Bowey.

Alcove’s services and products are available in the U.K., Poland, France, Germany and Spain. With London’s International Business Progamme, Alcove is entering the U.S. market with its solutions.

The team currently focuses on embedding artificial intelligence into its technology to predict care interventions. In the next six months, it plans to introduce an AI-enabled insurance product with two global insurers.

Bowey founded Alcove in 2014, with the goal of turning homes into safe spaces where older and disabled people can live independently.

She grew up with a sister who has microcephaly, which makes Bowey more sensitive about the challenges disabled people face at home.

In the first three months of Alcove’s operation, its service saved the life of a lady. She tumbled and fell in her bathroom. She wasn’t able to activate her personal alert button or the emergency pull cord. The Alcove motion sensors installed at her home detected that she wasn’t moving, and alerted her family and saved her life.